Bing grabs market share from Google over past year

CNET News: "Though Google remains firmly on top of the search engine market, it's shed market share to Microsoft over the past year, according to data released last week by research firm Compete.

Looking at the overall search engine market from May 2010 to May 2011, Compete found that Google has lost close to 16 percent of its share, dropping to 63.6 percent from 73.9 percent. At the same time, Microsoft grew its share by 75 percent, jumping to 17 percent from 9.7 percent."

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Steve Keil: A manifesto for play, for Bulgaria and beyond

Its shocking to find out how important "play" really is to our fundamental way of life. The advice really goes against what we think or are taught about the correct way to live (e.g. work hard), but I believe he's correct about what he says.

This talk really has a "universal message" that is not just for Bulgaria. Although, like all things, there has to be moderation.

At TEDxBG in Sofia, Steve Keil fights the "serious meme" that has infected his home of Bulgaria -- and calls for a return to play to revitalize the economy, education and society. A sparkling talk with a universal message for people everywhere who are reinventing their workplaces, schools, lives.

TEDTalks : Daniel Kraft: Medicine's future? There's an app for that - Daniel Kraft (2011)

This is an amazing talk about current and future developments in modern medicine. I was amazed by some of the technological advancements that were being discussed.

I have seen some of these technologies discussed before in other podcasts but Daniel does an awesome job of talking about all the technologies. Its like a sampler platter of what is available and what will be available soon.

Talk Description: At TEDxMaastricht, Daniel Kraft offers a fast-paced look at the next few years of innovations in medicine, powered by new tools, tests and apps that bring diagnostic information right to the patient's bedside.

Perform This Way (Parody of "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga)

Music video by "Weird Al" Yankovic performing Perform This Way (Parody of "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga). (C) 2011 Volcano Entertainment III, LLC, a unit of Sony Music Entertainment

The Oatmeal: How to fix any computer (Humor)

Check out "The Oatmeal: How to fix any computer"

Airbus Unveils Transparent Plane

Airbus' concept of flying in the future has an interactive, virtual cabin with transparent walls.

Porcelain Unicorn (short movie 3 minutes)

Grand prize winner of the Philips Parallel Lines 'Tell It Your Way' international competition.

Inside Google: The Myths, the Culture and the Secret Sauce

Here is an except from the Fora.tv web site: "Steven Levy is a Senior Writer for Wired and Formerly Senior Editor and Chief Technology Writer for Newsweek. Levy is the author of the 2011 book, In the Plex.

Is it the five-star chefs, free laundry and on-site masseuses that are the secret to Google's success? Perhaps its unique management style and innovative team? Either way, the revolutionary search engine has so deeply impacted our work and culture that we have turned the company name into a verb."

Google: Search by Image

Now you can use an image instead of words to start your Google search. To use this feature, go to http://images.google.com/.

Samsung Series 5 Chromebook Teardown Reveals Spartan, Efficient Design

eWeek.com reports: "Talk of Google Chromebooks rose to a fever pitch in May following their introduction at Google I/O, with Samsung and Acer planning to sell notebooks based on the Chrome operating system starting June 15 through Amazon.com and Best Buy online. Chromebooks, which boot up in 8 seconds simply by lifting the lid, include a file system that supports documents and a media player for video and music. It also provides integration with Picasa to let users manage their photos on Chrome computers. Recently iFixit tore down the Samsung Series 5 3G Chromebook, which eWEEK saw first hand, to discover what was under the hood of these speedy, Web surfing devices. The machine, which weighs 3.3 pounds, is powered by a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N570 processor. True to Google's word, the Series 5 has very little storage—all of 16GB internal SSD and 2GB of DDR3 RAM, non-upgradeable."

(read the rest of the article and see the slideshow)

Carlo Ratti: Architecture that senses and responds

With his team at SENSEable City Lab, MIT's Carlo Ratti makes cool things by sensing the data we create. He pulls from passive data sets -- like the calls we make, the garbage we throw away -- to create surprising visualizations of city life. And he and his team create dazzling interactive environments from moving water and flying light, powered by simple gestures caught through sensors.

Suzanne Lee: Grow your own clothes

Designer Suzanne Lee shares her experiments in growing a kombucha-based material that can be used like fabric or vegetable leather to make clothing. The process is fascinating, the results are beautiful (though there's still one minor drawback ...) and the potential is simply stunning.

Aaron Koblin: Artfully visualizing our humanity

Artist Aaron Koblin takes vast amounts of data -- and at times vast numbers of people -- and weaves them into stunning visualizations. From elegant lines tracing airline flights to landscapes of cell phone data, from a Johnny Cash video assembled from crowd-sourced drawings to the "Wilderness Downtown" video that customizes for the user, his works brilliantly explore how modern technology can make us more human.

Dennis Hong: Making a car for blind drivers

Using robotics, laser rangefinders, GPS and smart feedback tools, Dennis Hong is building a car for drivers who are blind. It's not a "self-driving" car, he's careful to note, but a car in which a non-sighted driver can determine speed, proximity and route -- and drive independently.

inPulse Watch: A fully programmable wireless Smartwatch.

inPulse Smartwatch allows you to wirelessly connect to several different types of host devices, such as: computers, laptops, and smartphones. The watch works with Android, Blackberry, Mac, Windows and Linux. It also offers two way connectivity via Bluetooth , so the watch and host can talk to each other.

There's an SDK and development community that is constantly developing new applications for the watch, or if you want you can write your own applications.

Hardware specifications:

• ARM7 Microcontroller
• 96x128 OLED color display
• CSR BC4 Bluetooth chipset
• Vibrating motor
• Single button input
• Flash memory for image, font and notification storage

Below is a an example of an inPulse Smartwatch application.

Cyber Crime Trends Report: Grim News for Q1 2011

CIO Insight reports: "An uptick in phishing attacks, a lack of domain name service security awareness among IT personnel, and an increase in mobile attacks are among the findings of IID's 'eCrime Trends Report, First Quarter 2011.' IID is a vendor of anti-phishing solutions. Many in the information security industry have been focused on Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) during the past several months, according to the report. The typical “low and slow” approach is often pointed out as a popular tactic for cyber criminals who are targeting systems at large organizations. As a result of the HBGary Federal breach, it has been discovered that enterprises such as Johnson and Johnson and Dow Chemical have been targets of hackers, as was the law firm King & Spalding. Like the attack against HBGary Federal, the breach of RSA’s SecurID Security two-factor Authentication product in March 2011 shows that threats really can penetrate and disrupt even those businesses that focus on IT security, according to the report" (read the rest of the article)